WWI East Africa: Belgians at Tabora (1916)

[ChrisBBB]

Last Monday's game was in feudal Japan. This weekend we leapt forward 300 years to German East Africa in WW1. Talk about different flavour. All part of a healthy, balanced diet, of course.

Perhaps you already know all you need to know about the Belgian invasion of Tanganyika in 1916. Perhaps you have already wrung every last drop of wargaming excitement from it, recreated every last skirmish ever fought in the Central Zambezian miombo, and never wish to see another German colonial askari. If so, look away now.

Otherwise, you could follow the link below to my report of our game of the battle of Tabora. (Spoiler alert: the figures are 6mm proxies, not gorgeous 28mm Force Publique and Schutztruppen. But I'd like to think it's still an interesting read for some.)
https://bloodybigbattles.blogspot.com/2024/12/wwi-east-africa-belgians-at-tabora-1916.html

And a Merry Christmas to all on LAF.

[FifteensAway]

Nice to see GEA on the table - even if not "beautiful".   

I have quite the 15 mm collection, from QRF, waiting in the wings all nicely organized for when it comes to time to prep and paint.  And with a possibility - maybe - of adding a 'small' Zeppelin for what if games.

[fred]

An interesting scenario - I didn’t know there had been Belgian involvement in East Africa.

How well do you find BBB works for WWI? I mainly ask as the lines of troops don’t quite look WWI, but I know when we play ITLSU we end up with loose lines of bases for units, so its not far off the look we get from a pure WWI ruleset, even though it is a representative level or two lower.

You bring up a good point about proxies, not sure who would have picked the Belgian proxies without being told, the Boers for Germans stand out a bit more (would Boer War British have worked any better, on the proxy front?).

[ChrisBBB]

FifteensAway: if this nudges you into painting up your GEA collection, I'll be happy (especially if we get to see the Zeppelin!).

fred: the rules themselves are basically OK but do need careful application. The critical thing seems to be how to adjust ranges and firepower factors and we evidently got that about right for this scenario, at least. For more conventional WWI warfare, one of our gang has drafted a more substantial set of modifications that better reflects how WWI trench systems work (etc), which I hope will properly capture WWI without us having to learn a whole new ruleset. I expect we'll find out in the New Year.